Isotopium: Chernobyl – Open Alpha

Isotopium: Chernobyl is a ‘Remote Reality’ game that uses the magic of video streaming to allow you to control real remote control vehicles and drive them around a highly detailed physical scale model recreation of Chernobyl!

Remote control vehicles are great, but they soon become boring when playing around with them in your own home as there’s only so much you can do with them. Isotopium: Chernobyl addresses this issue by giving you a 200 square meter recreation of Chernobyl to explore with up to 30 other players (10 at the moment), complete with multi-level buildings to drive through, objectives and special hidden areas to find.

You play Isotopium: Chernobyl via your browser, with you able to link into the video feed of your own personal remote control vehicle and drive it in first person and in real-time. They’re not the fastest vehicles in the world, but they are very agile, with a tank like ability to turn on the spot and you can even use a self sighting mechanism if you manage to flip yourself over. You do also have lights for allowing you to see in dark areas and a laser which is just a light at the moment, but you can pretend to shoot other player with it.

The developers of Isotopium: Chernobyl have big plans for the future of the game, with an aim of implementing puzzles, combat, team-based multiplayer, quests, forbidden places, new vehicles and whole new environments (such as a Mars colony and an underground cave system). At the moment the gameplay is limited to exploring and collecting different colored isotopes that are hidden around the city.

In future versions some of the isotopes will unlock new areas or allow you to control “The Crusher”, but for now they are used to power your vehicle, allowing you to play for longer. Thanks to the incredible detail of the environment it’s already a whole lot of fun as there’s so much to discover – you can roll around for ages and still keep coming across fun new surprises (check out the end of the gameplay video for a big one).

It’s a remarkable experience that manages to use video streaming to allow you to explore and play in vast physical playgrounds that can be located on the other side of the world. Forget Google’s Project Stream and Playstation Now, this is the sort of game streaming we want to see more of!